Morning Brief — June 21, 2013

Today’s Morning Brief is brought to you by Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada. CPA Canada was established by The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) and The Society of Management Accountants of Canada (CMA Canada) to represent and support all Canadian accounting bodies participating in unification of the profession under the CPA banner.

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Market rout slows, but shows no sign of turning — TPP talks could complicate Canada-Japan trade deal — Calgary holds its breath as Bow River crests — Senators grapple with union-busting bill — Singapore smog — Brazil explodes in protests — And, Queen Elizabeth is all for nice hats, but not for people making spectacles of themselves.

With the markets giving back gains, the time seems right to start revving up the international trade agenda. But with Japan preparing to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations next month, its ambassador to Canada hinted the ongoing bilateral trade deal his country is negotiating with Canada might have to take a back seat.

Calgarians are in for a long weekend of waiting and river watching. The Bow River reportedly crested overnight as it passed through downtown Calgary, but water levels are still dangerously high and the forecast calls for rain six of the next eight days. Here is a live blog for people who want to keep track of the flooding.

Back in Ottawa, while the MPs have closed up shop for the summer — though many are still partaking in the joys of patio living and ribfest in Ottawa — the Senate remains hard at work … (no, really … seriously … stop laughing).

The Conservative’s union-bashing bill, C-377, which demands significantly more onerous financial reporting by unions and their leaders than on the business community, is meeting bipartisan opposition, a rare sign that the Senate’s role as a check on legislation that could have major unintended consequences. The problem is that the Conservatives were hoping to have it in hand — as written — by the time the party meets next week for its biennial convention.

Manitoba’s opposition PCs ended their filibuster of a tax bill Thursday night, allowing the NDP government to move closer to raising the provincial sales tax one percentage point to eight per cent. Tory house leader Kelvin Goertzen had been stalling procedures by speaking for an hour or more after Question Period each day.

First Greece, then Turkey and now Brazil seems on the brink of massive social upheaval. Demonstrations, many violent, gripped more than 100 Brazilian cities yesterday and overnight, with some estimates saying more than a million frustrated youths have joined the protests against inequality and forced austerity. President Dilma Rousseff bailed out of a planned trip to Japan in order to deal with the crisis.

Conservationists, politicians, and businesspeople from more than 120 countries will attend the 2013 BirdLife International World Congress, which begins today in Ottawa.

Statistics Canada releases the retail trade figures for April and the consumer price index for May.

Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney launches an exhibition called Korea 60 and the weekend in honour of veterans of the Korean War.

Canada Post and the Royal Canadian Mint unveil the 2013 Laura Secord commemorative stamp and coin.

In Featured Opinion today:

Tasha Kheiriddin has some helpful advice for Prime Minister Stephen Harper after winding up the most traumatic Commons session of his career. He’s got time and money both — but does he have the nerve and the humility needed to perform the kind of political root canal that might save his majority?

Everybody wants to kill the Senate … everybody but the incumbents, at any rate. But what if you could re-tool the chamber so that it actually did what the law says it ought to do — balance rep-by-pop with regional representation — without the partisan hackery and the odour of privilege gone mad? It can be done and it would be easier than anyone thinks, according to J.D. law candidate Reem Zaia and law prof Gord DiGiacomo. “While it’s unlikely to be a cakewalk, Senate reform is surely a much more feasible goal than abolition and, in our view, a wiser pursuit.”

On the topic of ethics — it’s been 140 years since the Pacific Scandal broke and, according to Tyler Sommers of Democracy Watch, Canada is no closer to a comprehensive ethics regime to keep our MPs in line.

Fareed Zakaria of the Washington Post picks apart President Barack Obama’s glacially cautious approach to intervention in the Syrian civil war. Does the president really think offering automatic rifles to fighters facing artillery and airstrikes can do anything but prolong the slaughter? Is that his real intention — to draw Iran and Hezbollah into a protracted war that will leave both weakened?

Matthew Kroenig of the Department of Government at Georgetown University argues that President Obama’s call for mutual reductions in the U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles won’t make the world any safer — and likely will weaken America’s hand when the daggers come out in international conflicts.